This application relates in general to data access, display, and/or manipulation and more specifically to systems and methods for providing graphical depictions of data and/or data relationships to facilitate navigating the data and performing desired operations with or on the data.
Graphical interfaces for facilitating navigating data are employed in various demanding applications, including Customer Relationship Management (CRM), search engine, corporate billing, and general Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) applications. Such applications often employ databases designed to facilitate rapid access to relevant information.
Unfortunately, user access to data and methods for navigating data stored in conventional databases are often limited by a particular database design. Desired information, such as information associated with a given user, may be positioned in different portions of the database. The database may lack mechanisms for quickly navigating from the user's data to other related information.
Generally, information access in a conventional database relies upon the user knowing what they are searching for. For example, if a particular table in a database indicates that an employee works in Houston, it may be cumbersome to quickly determine all employees that work in Houston, unless the database has been designed to provide quick access to the specific information via the database table. To determine all employees that work in Houston, the user may need to perform a direct database query to retrieve the information. An additional query may be required to obtain more information about the employees' jobs. Such additional queries may be inefficient and may result in the user making important decisions without relevant knowledge.
Underlying database design is often relatively fixed for an end user that lacks experience in modifying database structures. Consequently, when an end user finds inefficiencies in the database design, such as aspects that hinder user access to data, changes to the database may require hiring of outside consultants to restructure the database. This can be costly for businesses whose information-access needs often change. Data-access inefficiencies that inhibit information access may result in further business inefficiencies by increasing the tendency for businesses to make important decisions with less than complete data about a particular issue or task.
To overcome information-access issues, businesses may contract with specialists to generate detailed reports. However, this can be undesirably time consuming and costly. This can be particularly problematic when a business decision relying upon the detailed reports must be made quickly.
Efficient data access and navigation ability is particularly important in large ERP systems, which may include various intercommunicating databases that may maintain terabytes of data. An example ERP system includes one or more software applications that aim to manage information and functions of a business and to promote seamless integration of all the information flowing through a company, the information of which may be located in various shared data repositories.
Unfortunately, traditional ERP systems typically offer very limited ways to explore data. Relatively fixed underlying database designs offer a relatively rigid and defined path to information, which may inhibit efficient data access.